Man robs banks, escapes in Arkansas River

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/JOHN JAQUES
Bryce Boyer with Pueblo Fire Department’s water rescue team uses binoculars to scan down the Arkansas River from a footbridge near the Santa Fe Bridge on Thursday for the possible body of a bank robbery suspect.

by ryan severance
the pueblo chieftain

Published: July 17, 2014;Last modified: December 27, 2014 08:25PM

A suspected bank robber led police on a chase Thursday afternoon that ended with him jumping into a spillway in the Arkansas River and never resurfacing.

The responding officers received information on the suspect and found someone matching his description along the river trail, Eric Gonzales, a public information officer with the Pueblo Police Department, said.

The suspect was running away and police started following him until they got to the Santa Fe bridge when officers began narrowing in on him.

The suspect then jumped off the trail into the Arkansas River just east of the bridge to elude police and swam to a barrier in the middle of the river underneath a walkway bridge that is parallel to and east of the Santa Fe bridge.

The man climbed onto a concrete pillar on the barrier while officers were on top of the walkway bridge and the sides of the riverbanks trying to get him to stop.

The suspect was taunting the police officers and suddenly took off his shoes and dove head-first from the concrete pillar into a spillway about 15 feet away in the river east of the walkway bridge.

Officers observed him come back to the surface briefly before being quickly swept into the undertow. He never surfaced again.

“We think he hit himself on some rocks,” Gonzales said. “There’s no way he cleared the spillway and there’s a lot of rocks sitting in that spillway.”

Police said the current where the suspect jumped in the river was strong enough to keep him under.

Police recovered a shoe from the river they believe belongs to the suspect.

Officers were working to identify the suspect.

A photo was taken of him before he jumped in the river and police are in the process of reviewing that picture.

Gonzales said it’s unknown at this time if the man was armed or not.

Pueblo police officers worked in conjunction with the Pueblo Fire Department’s water rescue team as the search and investigation continues.

A man who lives on Moffat Street just south of the portion of the river the incident took place at, said he witnessed the man go into the river.

“I saw him go where the rapids on that spillway are,” he said, saying the suspect was wearing white shorts and a white shirt. “It shook me up a bit. It was crazy to see something like that happen.”